Anthropology of the Economen and Econowives
The reason why I love this series so much because its most definitely mirrors our very own America societal decline, in a myriad of ways. Kinda like an annoying alarm you can slightly hear but it’s not making enough noise for you to actually be pushed to do something about it. You bargain with the alarm as long as it’s quiet. And suddenly the alarm grows much louder, almost akin to that of train horn, constantly blaring, as if it’s telling you that your time is now here, changes are coming; if you’re still here, your previous life was effectively over.
In THT, we see June living her life as a handmaid as a lower Tier woman, but in a high class society due to her connection to Fred, Serena, and eventually when Nick gets some pull. We see oppression through THT by watching the cruelty of the handmaids at the hand of the wives , commanders, and even some of the aunts.
In TT so far, we see Agnes/Hannah and her friends are from a generally higher social class. We see what they’re learning, pick up on their developing slang, going through different hardships they may face bc of them being young girls being sold off to older men and receiving social points (or a decrease of social points) for whoever they end up with. As the show goes on, no matter what status, you learn that it doesn’t really matter here: the basis is that women aren’t as safe here as they make it seem bc of Gilead culture.
I think it would be interesting to see the daily lives of the economen and econowomen. Like how did they round them up and determine who’s marrying who. What schools do the econochildren attend. Where do they live? Work? How do they socialize? I would like to see it from a faction of those who are true believers, and the faction that just didn’t have enough time or resources to escape when they had the opportunity to. I want to see how MayDay operates amongst them as well bc I’m sure they are incremental with working with MayDay.
They have the opportunity to explore the world much more. I’m really interested in this story and I love knowing more haha.
Right now I’m reading The Testaments (-: